"Monty Cristo" once again...
I didn't understand what Baz Luhrmann needed gimmicky, gaudy 3D for in THE GREAT GATSBY when he's so compositionally adept already. Then I saw the footage at CinemaCon and I got it.
THE GREAT GATSBY sizzle reel we were shown could just as well serve as an extended trailer in front of 3D features. It was, to me, the culmination of Luhrmann's sumptuous visual language that he's been culvitating since STRICTLY BALLROOM and through films like ROMEO + JULIET and MOULIN ROUGE.
The outrageous, gaudy 1920's truly roar to life in vivid modern color, with an effect I can only describe as "stereophonic technicolor". The movie looks and sounds big, loud, and DEEP. Even the quiet, small moments have that bewildering feeling of emotionally harrowing memories. What Luhrmann has captured in the bits and pieces we were shown is the transporting world of a dream.
We saw Gatsby and Daisy meet, a brief look at Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), and loads of dancing and partying. Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is, understandably the most ever-present force. We see him in the present (the story is told from his memories), the past during which the film takes place, and we see a couple of sequences that must have been dream or fantasy scenes, the most stirring of which saw Gatsby in a coffin at the bottom of a winding, circular stairway, with Nick collapsed near the top weeping.
I consider myself a fervent advocate for not using 3D merely for the sake of an inflated ticket price. This director made a case for its use in a costume drama, based on what I saw. We won't be absolutely sure for a few months yet, but this looks very promising indeed.
What say you? Did we need another film adaptation of THE GREAT GATSBY? Do you need to see it to believe it as worthwhile in 3D?
Moisés Chiullan
"Monty Cristo"
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